The other day Cindy, Jay, Amber and I were out to lunch. During lunch, we were talking about taking a day off when we don’t have any check-in’s or check-out’s and we could all head out on the boat together. Amber piped up saying “We only had one check-out today, I’m done cleaning the room already and we only have one check-in. They’ve already called to say they wont be here till around 8pm.”

I said “Well then everybody go get changed, I’ll go fuel up the boat and lets meet back at the Low-Key Hideaway in 20 minutes.”

We figured we wouldn’t have to be back till 3:30pm so we could open the tiki bar, and it was just before noon, so we’d have plenty of time to go ride around and enjoy this beautiful day. While I was fueling up the boat, Cindy walked out with Little on a leash and said “Luca is sound asleep snoring in bed with the A/C blowing on him. He doesn’t like when it’s hot out, but Little absolutely loves to go for boat rides, so I’m bringing her.”

Jay loaded up a cooler and the girls changed into some shorts. Soon enough we were motoring out with nothing but blue skies and big fluffy clouds to act as a backdrop. While we were heading for a island to kick back on, we motored up on a big pod of dolphins. I slowed down and created a big wake behind the boat to see if they were interested in following us. Sure enough, they hit it like a crackhead to a glass pipe.

I honestly think it’s hard for them to resist a good wake. They just love to play in the surf the boat creates. While we were watching them, we kept seeing a tiny little dolphin jumping up out of the water at odd times. It was so small, it couldn’t have been more than a few days old. The adults swim in the wakes by arching their bodies and make it look effortless to follow the boat. This little guy had to kick his tail like mad to keep up. When he couldn’t keep up, he’d tuck in close to the side of an adult dolphin and ride atop one of their side fins. While the dolphins were playing behind the boat, Little had to be held onto because she thinks she’s a badass and wanted to jump out of the boat to go after them.I was driving the boat and couldn’t get that good of photos, but Jay was able to snag a couple of shots that are magazine quality.

After the dolphins grew bored with our boat, we found our favorite sandbar and all got off the boat walking in the soft white sand. Little kept us entertained while she sprinted up and down the beach chasing anything that moved (mostly seaweed floating in the water) and rolling in the gritty sand. She would go sprinting into the water after a piece of seaweed that was floating in the current like she was going to kill it at any second. Then she’d come running back up the beach and roll in the warm sand to try and get the salt water off her hair. This went on for awhile as the 4 of us sat laughing at how silly she was.

Jay was walking down the waters edge near a big piece of driftwood when he jumped back and yelled for us to grab Little. There was a snake that had just slithered under the driftwood and was hiding from Jay. Cindy snatched up Little in her arms knowing that most snakes would see her as a tasty meal.

Most of the snakes around the Cedar Keys are Cottonmouths which are extremely poisonous. Not wanting to take any chances, we grabbed the paddle out of the boat in case the snake came towards us and we’d have a weapon to keep it at a safe distance. Cottonmouths are known to be aggressive and usually wont back down when approached which was freaking me out as this snake was not scared of us in the least. It came slithering out from under the driftwood and came right towards the boat. Once in the water, it moved lightning fast and had us all running away from it.

Little had noticed the snake at this point and was struggling to get out of Cindy’s grasp wanting to go after it. She was whining and whimpering like she was some attack dog. The snake decided to take cover under the boat, so we all went back up on the beach to distance ourselves away from it hoping it would just keep slithering down the beach.

When it did slither away, we loaded back up in the boat and left the island and the snake to its lonesome. I showed a picture to a friend of mine who told me it was just a common water snake which made me feel better.

I needed to head into work, so our boat day had come to an end.

Fast forward a few days to yesterday afternoon. We had rain storms passing through the area that were bringing some big, beautiful clouds with them. Jay was working the bar and Cindy and I had the afternoon off. I suggested that we go out in the boat so we could get some cool photos of the storm clouds. Cindy asked about the storm, but looking on the radar, it was just dumping large amounts of rain, and there wasn’t any lightning or high winds.

I was impressed when she said “Sure, if we get rained on, all we’ll be is wet, so lets go out and bring the dogs with us. This time Luca can go since it’s not that hot out.”

We found an empty beach and Little leapt from the boat as soon as we hit the shoreline. She gets so excited when she has the chance to be out and not on a leash and was sprinting up and down the beach as fast as she could. Luca, the old man in the pair has trouble keeping up with her now. He wants to play with her, but he’s so much larger in size, that she usually just bites the shit out of him to put him back in his place letting him know that they’ll only play when she wants to. Poor Fella.

Believe all the hype you want about Pitbulls, but anyone who owns one knows the truth

Notice that Little has all 4 legs in the air and is way ahead of the old man Luca as Cindy calls them down the beach

Little Kicking up Sand trying to Show Luca how Tuff she is

Notice all the sand in Little’s Mouth from tasting crabs and other dead things along the beach

After an hour of letting them wear themselves out, we loaded back into the boat and headed for home. We could see a wall of black clouds coming towards us and knew we were about to get dumped on.

We put all the camera gear away in the Pelican Box to keep it safe, packed up anything that could blow out of the boat and hunkered down. The ride in was a slow one as it was raining so hard, we could barely open our eyes due to how hard it was coming down. Luca laid at our feet atop a big comforter we had brought with a towel over top of him. Little was snuggled down in Cindy’s coat. We could hear Luca snoring over the noise of the rain and the outboard.

Something tells me he liked his time spent on the beach.